TV ratings: AFL narrowly trumps NRL grand final

Richmond's historic victory over the Adelaide Crows dominated Australian television over the weekend.

With a big weekend of sport across with Seven hosting the AFL grand final on Saturday and Nine hosting the NRL grand final on Sunday there was as much a battle between the networks as there was between the sportsmen.

In the end Seven trumped NIne with an average of 130,000 more people tuning in to watch the AFL grand final over the NRL premiership.

Just over 3.5 million people tuned in to watch the Tigers take on Adelaide Crows on the Saturday afternoon, with the Tigers storming home by 48 points and putting an end to a 30-year premiership drought.

Sunday's clash between the North Queensland Cowboys and Melbourne Storm drew an average metro and regional audience of 3.39 million to Nine.

Unsurprisingly, the AFL premiership proved much more popular in Victoria than it did elsewhere. An average 1.27 million Melburnians switched on the telly to watch the big game, compared to 376,000 in Sydney and 349,000 people in Brisbane.

The NRL grand final saw less of an audience gap between the major cities, with an average 813,000 people tuning in from Sydney, 644,000 in Melbourne and 671,000 people in Brisbane.

Despite more people tuning into the AFL grand final overall, Macklemore's NRL performance proved more popular with TV viewers than The Killers.